The present invention relates to sawhorses and, more particularly, to sawhorses having rotatable bases which make it possible to significantly reduce the effective volume occupied by the sawhorse when not in use.
Sawhorses have been in common use for many years. A pair of sawhorses provides the user, typically a carpenter or woodworker, a convenient support on which to rest the material which is to be worked.
A sawhorse is typically made up of a cross beam, typically made of wood, and a pair of substantially triangular bases. The apex of each triangular base is connected to the cross beam at one of its ends. Each base extends downward from the apex and terminates in a relatively wide base which rests on the ground and provides stable support to the cross beam on which the work piece it to be placed.
In traditional sawhorses the connection between each of the bases and the cross beam was effectively permanent so that the sawhorse had a single fixed configuration which was rather bulky and presented serious difficulties in storing of the sawhorses between uses.
Several suggestions have been offered to solving the storage problem. One class of solutions provides sawhorses which are foldable, or collapsible, so that after use the effective volume, or bulk, of the sawhorse can be reduced by taking advantage of various hinges and tracks to displace certain portions of the sawhorse relative to others so as to reduce the bulk of the sawhorse for storage. These configurations are typically complicated to produce, and therefore expensive, and are cumbersome to use.
Another class of solutions involves providing bases which are rotatable relative to the beam so that when the sawhorse is to be stored the bases can be made to rotate approximately 90.degree. so that they lie substantially parallel to, or in a common plane with, the cross beam, thereby greatly reducing the bulk of the sawhorse.
One example of such as solution, teaching the rotation of the bases relative to the cross beam for storage, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,194. However, the configuration described is very complicated and would costly to build and cumbersome to operate.
More recently, another example has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,697 which describes a sawhorse with leg assemblies which are attached to the cross beam with swivel assemblies. Each swivel assembly includes a foot member connected to the cross beam which is nested in a shoe member which forms a part of the leg assemblies. The foot and shoe members have cooperating detents and recesses for locking the leg assemblies in position.
The configuration disclosed suffers from a serious disadvantage in that in order to rotate the leg assemblies relative to the cross beam it is necessary to separate, or retract, the foot member and shoe member from each other to allow the detents and recesses to disengage before the leg assemblies can be rotated relative to the cross beam. The retraction is carried out against the biasing force of a spring and requires the user to pull the cross beam and one of the leg assemblies apart against the biasing force and then, while continuing to apply force to keep the two member apart, simultaneously rotate the leg assembly relative to the cross beam. The operation is somewhat awkward and unnatural and requires a small measure of acrobatics on the part of the user.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a sawhorse which could be readily and easily reduced in bulk for storage and which would be inexpensive to build and convenient to operate.